Romans 13:1–4Scripture
Well, good morning, everybody. Morning. It is my privilege to start us off at Romans chapter 13, and this is what Romans 13 and we'll be looking at, the first four verses, and this is what Scripture says: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer." So
Point 1Know what Romans 13 does and doesn't say
Before we go into this a little deeper, the one thing we need to understand are some, what Romans 13 is not talking about and what Romans 13 is talking about. Number one, anytime in Scripture we see "he," if it's capitalized it's referring to God. And doing some research on Romans 13, there are many pastors, many people that do commentaries that believe that "he" in Romans 13 is referring to God, which is a completely different message. For we see God is appointing governing officials and the "he" is talking about governing officials. So that's important for us to understand while we dive into this. A lot of people believe the book of Romans was actually written around 57 to 59 AD, and this is important because at the age of 16 the emperor of Rome was called Nero Caesar Augustus, and he was in office at 16, at 54 AD. Now could you just imagine for a second, you're 16 years old, what were you thinking? What were some things you might have been complaining about in your life? What were some tough decisions? You see, oftentimes our tough decisions when we were 16 was whether or not, do I play with this person at recess or do I play with this person at recess, right? Our priorities at 16 in our culture, our Western mindset, is a little different. You see, at this age Nero was the emperor. Rome made a lot of tough decisions, and these decisions, like a lot of governing officials and a lot of authorities, affect everybody that's underneath them. You see, Rome within itself had great power. It had high wealth, it had a lot of control, a lot of influence, and a lot of people would know Rome for the sense of the historical event that happened, the rise and the fall of Rome, how Rome just completely went from the top to the bottom real quick. But there's also this other historical event that has occurred called the Great Fire of Rome, and many historians and many people of that culture at that time that Paul is writing this believe that Nero had some kind of involvement in this historical event. And this is important because this fire ruined a lot of livestock, a lot of people's lives, a lot of people's profits.
And just think for a minute, that in order to make a profit, or if you're a farmer or anything like that, it's destroyed overnight, and then now there's speculations that the one that's in charge of you, the man that's in authority, had some kind of involvement in it. You see, this could cause a lot of negative attention toward you, and ultimately this could cause a lot of people to want to rebel and revolt against you. This is important because ultimately, in this context, it's important because Nero had to find a way to get this negative attention off of him onto someone else, and there's no greater person and no greater group in the history of mankind that we can put blame on than Christians of that day. Well, you might be wondering, well, why Christians? Why not anyone else? That's a good question. Let's take a step back and let's put our feet in the shoes of the government of Rome for a second. Number one, there is a distinct group of people that meet secretly. Now we know this as the believers, the body of Christ, coming together, wow, together, coming together as the body of Christ, right?
That's number one. So what are they doing there? Number two, they look different, they talk different, they walk different, everybody else, like they are a sore, like they are like that little paint spot on a white background where you can see it from a mile away. They look different. Why? And then they also, in this case, Nero thought so highly of himself that, because of his highly thinking of himself, he believed that the people in Rome should bow down, should worship him like a god. Well, then we know from Old Testament Scriptures what happens when other people replace themselves as God, and what Christians do in that time. You see, in history, if you are somebody of high power and people are meeting away from you in secret and you don't know what's going on, they act different, they talk different, their conduct is different, more than likely they're probably trying to rebel against you or trying to figure out a way to overthrow you. And that's important to understand in this context, because in this time, and even historians, but especially in the culture within itself, people would describe Nero as brutal, evil, barbaric, and a cruel human being. Well, you see, Rome had a lot of power, but it was not a democracy, and yet Paul is writing, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities," even in the situation that this is not all rainbows and sunshine. For a lot of people this persecution affected everything, but yet they do not have fear because they still know who's on the throne. What happens in the end? God always wins in the end, and it doesn't matter what this earth looks like, it doesn't matter what we're going through. It's encouraging, because if a Christian has to disobey the government, they can. But oftentimes in sermons of Romans 13, what people often will take is, they will hijack this Scripture and only talk about disobeying the authorities. So I would like to understand and go through what Romans 13 is not talking about before we can reread Scripture and get rid of all this baggage and understand what the Scripture is truly talking about. Number one, Romans 13 is not talking about a perfect government. We understand that because Paul is writing to the church in Rome underneath Nero. Number two, Romans 13 is not a platform to promote politics or to push agendas, because Scripture does not imply any of that. And yet we do have to know the difference of biblical obedience, which we're going to learn today, and we're going to learn briefly biblical disobedience, because there is a significant difference. But oftentimes the church will use a crutch to say it's biblical, but it's actually our opinion why we're rebelling against it. We'll learn next week that paying taxes is biblical, but oftentimes our opinion will say otherwise, because we value our opinions over Scripture, and we'll get
Point 2Disobey only when it contradicts God's call
Into that. So when is disobeying the government and going against that government authority biblical? When is that accurate? When they dictate what you can talk from the Bible, when they dictate your walk, how you conduct yourself, if they go against the calling God has on a Christian and his living and his conduct, then absolutely. Acts 5:29, when Peter says, "We must obey God rather than men," is correct.
Disobedience to authority is when it goes against the call of God on a Christian's life.
Cameron McCarty · 8:13
You see, I used this example at reverb on Wednesday, and I'm going to say this: if a teacher tells you to clean up someone else's mess, now I will be the first to say that seems unfair, I don't agree with it. If I didn't make the mess, why do I have to clean it up? That's my opinion, but it's not against my Christian values, my Christian morality, my Christian walk. So clean it up. But if a teacher slaps another kid and looks you in the eye and says, when the principal comes in a couple minutes, you lie to him, say you didn't see anything, well, commandment number nine says, "Thou shalt not lie," so that goes against your Christian values. So we understand the difference when Acts 5:29 talks about we obey God rather than man, but we cannot use that as a crutch to disobey government based on our opinions. You see, even in the Old Testament, many people love this, now my favorite book of the Old Testament, there's two, Ecclesiastes and Daniel, but specifically in the book of Daniel you got the fiery furnace, King Nebuchadnezzar, "Bow down to me," but there were three that refused that. Why? Because when it comes against our calling of God, which is worshiping God, then yes, Acts 5:29 is legit. But oftentimes I feel like we use this as a crutch. Why? Because humans are corrupt within our core. When we understand our old nature, when we're going through Romans, we understand the difference from the old nature and the new nature God has called us and picked us to. We understand this because we have all fallen short of the glory of God, which is in Romans 3:23, and oftentimes we will still take this Scripture and twist it around our opinions and not what Scripture, and not what Paul is intending here right now. You see, oftentimes we lean and we trust in our own opinions over truth, even to the point when biblical truths hurt us or it goes against our opinions, we will unhitch ourselves from a community of believers and move somewhere else. You see, Paul has talked multiple times, even leading to this point, up that chapter by chapter in the book of Romans has built upon itself. You see, if we started at Romans 13 as chapter 1, that might be difficult, because Paul is laying groundwork for every chapter, which is what the gospel is and is not. We've spent several chapters on that in the beginning, and God's sovereignty and God's perfect plan for all of mankind. You see, Paul has taken us through a journey in which he shows us we are incapable to be in right standing with God on our own. If you go through the book of Romans and you say, this is impossible to do, be a living sacrifice, i'm supposed to do this, it's supposed to seem impossible, because as a Christian that lives rogue without the Holy Spirit, it is impossible. It is not true, because a Christian with the Holy Spirit, this stuff can be true in your life. We cannot do this walk on our own. We lean on Scripture, we understand that the Holy Spirit can do this within us, and in this context Paul is talking about Christian living under all governing authorities, from dictatorships, socialism, democracy, all. Now with this, we're going to go back and reread Scripture and really dissect what this truly says. So number one, verse 1: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on every wrongdoer." Number one, every person means a believer, an unbeliever, everybody is under authority of the government. Okay, in this case we understand that this is to the church in Rome, so he's talking directly to believers. And then it says "subject," and when you look in the Greek, it's actually divided into two words here. The first half of the word means "under," and then "arranged" is the last, which is very similar to like a ranking in a military, right? Ranking in a military is when one individual God has appointed
Point 3God's hand is in every authority
Authority, and God has appointed the people underneath authority.
Now you see that God's hand is in everything. God is not absent of anything, even governing officials, appointing them regardless of how we feel about them.
Cameron McCarty · 13:25
We understand from Scripture that it showed that Pharaoh was used for God and for his purpose, and a lot of people believe that pharaoh was a villain and Moses was the hero, but in fact this was all according to God's plan. And then we also see in verse 5 that this subject, that God has his hand in everything, even government, is also shown in verse 5 as well. Well, Cameron, this is one man, this is just Paul, so does anyone else talk about it? Well, of course. If you look at 1 Peter 2:13–14, we see, "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good." Even Peter is talking about this, and then to just not even just get that out of context, we need to look at verse 15. Why is that important? Because "this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people." Paul and Peter are saying the same thing here: submission to governing authorities is submitting and obeying God. So on the contrary, when you resist governing authorities based on opinion, based on preference or whatever, you're also doing the same to God, because God is the one appointing governing authorities.
So we must understand obeying one is obeying the other and resisting one is resisting the other.
Cameron McCarty · 14:57
I think the importance about our opinions too is when we insert our opinion into something, oftentimes we will muddy things up. So if we insert our opinions on biblical truth that don't align with us, then we're going to have a hard time understanding the Bible if our opinions are far greater than any truth that's in it. You see, for instance, if your boss tells you to do something, and it doesn't matter if you don't respect him, doesn't matter if you don't like them, but they say to do this and you don't do it, well, you're going to be viewed very negatively in their eyes, but far greater, if they know you're a Christian, you just crippled your witness in many ways. Number one, submit to him unless it goes against your call of what God has called you to. And oftentimes we understand we can believe God has a perfect plan for our life, we are as Christians the light of the gospel, but oftentimes Christians are the light that's in a bug zapper, to zap somebody, and they'll never come away, or to kill somebody in a sense by taking your Bible and hitting them upside the head until they're unconscious. We must understand truth, but in a sense of not killing somebody with it. There's grace, there's mercy, God has shown us mercy so we should do the same. But even this is a hard text for us in a democracy where we can come marching into church without fear, carry our Bibles, and the worst thing that might happen is someone making fun of us, because our Western lens is different than what's really going on outside of the United States. God is still moving in the United States, just as God is moving in Africa and Pakistan and Iraq, but it looks different. You see, we can come here without worry, we have freedom, and then there's other countries that if you proclaim to be a Christian you will be murdered, you will be killed, because bowing your knee to God on truth, understanding truth, is far greater than temporal pain here on earth. Now we cannot comprehend that, because the worst thing that might happen to us is someone makes fun of us, but there were people dying for Christianity. So we need to understand and remember once again that this is about Christian living, Christian relationship in any country and in any under any authority as well, because we understand that even in Pakistan, Iraq, Canada, United States, Christians are to be model citizens of this earth. Now we understand that as model citizens, as our flesh, these things will die out, we will be six feet under, but our soul goes somewhere eternal, and we understand that because no matter what goes on here, we can rest assured that eternity is far greater than any pain and suffering that we can have today. And it's important to understand and go back a couple chapters when Paul has been laboring on this issue chapter after chapter, that God is in control, God's hand is in everything from the big to the small. Even when he appointed Pharaoh as authority, he still used it. Nero in this case, God appointed. King Nebuchadnezzar was used by God, King darius was used by God. And then there's a quote here from a pastor that I thought was pretty good: "Unfortunately, many Christians cannot see past the earthly government to the government of God. They do not trust in the providences of God. Many professing Christians essentially lose their mind when it comes to politics. They fail to see the God who is over the government.
Should we engage in politics? Yes, of course. Speak truth to those in power. But to freak out or make an idol of a party or a system is not acceptable for a believer." We can easily miss Scripture by inserting our opinion. Well, "Let every person be subject to governing," if they can think, if they can hold a press conference, no, that's our opinion, but Scripture is not about our opinion. And then we see "incur judgment." Whoo. You know, when I was asked to do Romans 13, I'm like, oh, I'm excited, and I read it and I'm like, because there's a lot of baggage that comes with government, with authorities. I mean, let's be honest here, we are all rebellious to our core. We like to be bad boys and bad girls and stuff like that's just in our nature, rebel against the cause, right? But in here it says "incur judgment." We know ultimately at the end of everybody's time here on earth we have a date that we stand before the Lord and we hear one of two things. You hope to hear "Well done, good and faithful servant," but we also understand on the contrast, or the contrary, that we understand that some people are going to be hearing "Depart from me, for I never knew you." God will have ultimate authority here and when we all die. So it's important to understand that disobedience to authority is disobeying God. For this is because even if authority does wrong, they make wrong policies, they make wrong judgment calls, they don't have a free pass with God at the end. They will stand before the Lord just like anybody here, and they have to be held accountable for everything as well. So let's not seek revenge. Wait, hold on, that was last chapter, right? That Christians are not to seek revenge, to go after vengeance, don't do any of that. We learned that's under Christian living as well, because
Point 4Government exists to punish evil and protect good
God's wrath will occur in the end. Then we see "a terror to bad conduct." We gather here not fearfully, we're here safely, we can go to sleep knowing the police department is working, we can gather on Christmas Day with our family knowing the police department are out there. Why? Because God appointed them to do a specific thing, which is if someone does bad or breaks the law, then they have to go to the punishment, they have to pay the fine, they have to do whatever it is for breaking that law, and to protect those that obey the law, that do good. That is why a pastor in a commentary said, "The connection between Romans 12 and Romans 13 is very clear. If the Christian is not to seek personal vengeance, it does not take away the government's authority to punish wrongdoers."
You see, God's plan for authority is to bring justice here on earth.
Cameron McCarty · 21:48
Yes, people will do bad things, people will do good things, but ultimately it's to protect those that obey the law. We understand that if we do our part as we are to be model citizens, as what the Scripture says, then we understand that regardless of our opinions, we pay taxes, we stop at red lights, maybe stop at yellow lights too, for some of you daredevils out there that like to push the envelope, you know, like, how far is not too far, right? I can be guilty of the yellow light as well sometimes. Sometimes it looks yellow but it's really red. Has anyone seen that? I don't know what goes on with that, but we are to be model citizens, pay our taxes, do all these things. But if someone has a warrant out for their arrest, "terror to bad conduct," but if someone has a warrant out for their arrest, they're not chill as a cucumber. No, they are looking over their shoulders, very uneasy, and you know, I think the main cause of that is because of the show Dog the Bounty hunter, someone knocking on your door, bam, there he is, you know what I mean? Like, oh wow. But that's how it is, if you do bad your conscience will say that's bad. So if you obey, you do good. If you don't run that stop sign, if you don't run that stop light, then you don't have to look over your shoulder in the rearview mirror, is there a cop behind me, because why? You didn't do anything bad, right? We are to obey God, and even to understand obeying authority, even regardless if we like it or not, it's also obeying God. We know failure to obey has consequences in our life. If you don't stop at a red light, you may cause an accident. You don't pay your taxes, Mr. IRS will come. And even Titus 3:1–2 says, and this is Paul writing this, "Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people." We cannot do any of that on our own. That's why we need the Holy Spirit. You see, God has given moral authority to the government to use force if necessary to do good and deter evil. Now if we didn't have a police department, a lot of us might think, and Jeff Compton said this last Wednesday and I thought it was good, that you really don't know your neighbors, but if there's no authority, do you really think your neighbors have the best intentions on keeping you around? We don't know. But is the police department, is the police, like, if someone upset you and you're like, oh, I could strangle them, but the police department, you understand there's consequences behind that. But imagine if there was none, how different that would be. No structure there, no government, and definitely no punishment for those that do bad. You see, police enforce laws here, judges punish based on the law, and the law system ensures structure and order for all of us here on earth. And when we look at verse 4, it says "the sword in vain," which means the government, just like anybody else, will have a judgment day, will have a date in history where they stand before the Lord and they will be held accountable for everything they do. And we understand that they are servants of the Lord, similar to a servant like a deacon within a church, we'll get into, because if you look at the King James Version in verse 4 it actually says "for he is the minister of God." Matthew Poole said, "The Scripture applies to him that preaches the word and to him that bears the sword. Both are God's ministers. There is one common end of their ministry, which is the good and welfare of mankind." Now I'll be honest with you, when I look at the cop, like when I pulled in here someone got pulled over here and I thought, I never have thought, man, that is a minister of the Lord, he is doing the Lord's work. I have never thought that, and I've never got a ticket, but if I got a ticket I would definitely never thank them. Now I know one person said that they did thank a police officer, because of that I thought that was wild. I'm like, you thought, you thank them? But then I look into this and I'm like, yeah, it makes sense, because even if we get a ticket we do, we deserve it. If we speed, if we run a red light, at that point we can be a danger to society and we deserve whatever punishment may come. Just as deacons serve the church, that same word "minister" refers to governing authorities as well, and without these kind of services it would be total anarchy. It would be very scary, free from consequences, there would be absolutely no accountability, and I would be kind of frightened a little bit, you know what I mean? Like that does not sound fun. But in God's perfect plan he even set something up so small that we can think as the police, the EMS, whatever it might be, and set this structure up here on earth as well. It's how God uses them and it's how God's purpose for them and why they're there to begin with that we must understand. You see, we learned last chapter how Christians are to function. We see in verse 9, "Let love be genuine."
It's not some act, it's not something that we can just do on our own, but it's true, it's authentic. And we learned that we also learned how we as the body of Christ function within each other, that one Christian on its own cannot be functioning, because one thumb cut off from the body is a dead thumb, it can't operate. We also learned something very interesting, which is don't be wise in your own sight, be a living sacrifice. And Paul has taken us through a journey in which shows us that we are incapable of doing any of this on our own, and especially incapable of being in right standing with God on our own, which is good, because oftentimes when we try to plan something, does it ever go 100% right, or do we have to adapt over time with it? And it's important to understand these things that we learned in chapter 12, because this is the same principle just on a different level, which is governing authorities. Remember the military term, God is placing authority and God placed you under it, and even in corrupt government authorities it's still better than nothing at all.
You see, imagine a kindergarten class without a teacher. Oh Lord, what will happen?
Cameron McCarty · 28:56
Roads without police officers, i'll tell you what, when people on the highway be dipping and dodging and stuff and you're already going the speed limit and they're probably going 20 over, that's scary. Or something that I dread is the DMV, but imagine if there's no direction or no people at the DMV. Oh Lord, the DMV is not fun with all the structure. Could you imagine trying to do it on your own? If I had to do it on my own, I still wouldn't have the paperwork and I have to go back, you know, that's the type of person I am, and thank goodness there's structure, because without it would not be good.
But then when I look through, and I've heard a couple sermons on this topic, and it was really interesting how many political agendas, or even to the point of a pastor saying, "As a church body we are voting for this person in particular, and if you're not doing that, there's the door." I thought that was interesting, that
Point 5Spend less time on politics, more on the gospel
Many times people use politics in this situation to promote their own opinion or agenda. But then I am reminded by where we went, and if you go back to chapter 10, verse 15, Paul actually is quoting from an Old Testament Scripture, and it says, "And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!'"
You see, in our culture we see politics as a means to insult and divide against other people, because we think so highly of our opinion and so lowly of what other people think.
Cameron McCarty · 30:28
But if we understand that God has a perfect plan, if God appointed governing officials and disobeying governing officials is disobeying God, what about if we insult, if we insult the plan that God has put forth? If we insult our president, our senator, our mayor, or whatever it might be, our boss, God appointed them there, so does that mean we are insulting him? Well, Cameron, let's not jump ahead of ourselves, that seems silly. Well, see, if I go to an art gallery and I look at this art piece and I say, wow, that is hideous,
I would burn that, you're not just insulting the art but the artist.
Cameron McCarty · 31:17
It's no different. I understand there are policies, there are laws I don't even agree with, I think are kind of ridiculous within themselves. If it's evil, we learned last week, "Let love be genuine," but in order to let love be genuine, we must abhor what is evil. It comes together, you can't separate them. So if it's evil, a Christian should be vocal, but if it's our opinion and it's not evil, we often will vocalize that over the other. You see, I look at Jesus when he was on the cross, and many of us, if we were ever in that situation, it would not look anything like this. You see, when he was on the cross he said, "Father, forgive them." What he did not say is, "Look at these foolish people, they don't even understand what they're doing. You wait until the third day and I'm going to show you what's up." Because genuine love pours out of a believer, no matter if we are right-wing or left-wing.
A bird with one wing will never be effective in society.
Cameron McCarty · 32:36
That's, and another thing is, a house divided will never have a solid foundation.
You want to know the solid foundation for all people? It is the Word of God, not opinions,
Cameron McCarty · 32:46
and definitely don't have your solid foundation on politics, because that's already a rocky foundation, right? But on the Word, because it doesn't compromise, it holds true and it remains the same. In 50 years it'll be the same, in 150 years it'll be the same. We must understand this. So let's spend less time promoting a political agenda and share the good news of the gospel. "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news." Why is this important? Because I think we get distracted as Christians on this.
You see, eternity is far greater than any four-year term ever will be,
Cameron McCarty · 33:26
and we must understand that there are two places that someone goes for eternity, and I think that is more important than some four-year political agenda. But the thing that I see from chapter 12 that Paul is talking about, the believers as the body of Christ, we are to come together with humility, but oftentimes I believe we value our opinions over humility. So my question for all of us is, do we truly believe God has a perfect plan? You see, my very first time I could vote in an election, I had opinions, and I was in high school too, but I had a lot of opinions, and I had a believer come up to me and say, "cameron, do you realize insulting this person, you believe God has a perfect plan?" Yes. "You think God has his hand in everything?" Yes. "Then you're insulting the plan of God. If God created them for his purpose, you're insulting his plan. God made the person, God has a purpose for them." But oftentimes we will always think so highly of ourselves and so lowly of other people. And I'm reminded, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news." We learned last chapter about you're either being molded by society or transformed by the renewal of our mind. And on Tuesday, November 5th, 2024, is Election Day, and this is what I think about it. It's a day that many people will go and cast their votes. Leading up to this, people will do their research, which we should do our research, intense research, to figure out who we want to vote for, right, as an individual, and it will be a day that many people will express their opinions. It's a day I will express my opinion, and in expressing my opinion is filling in who I'm voting for, that's my opinion, and putting it in the machine, because the gospel message being proclaimed and preached is far greater than my opinion on who should be in office next.
My opinion for politics stops when I insert my vote, and whatever happens, it's in God's hands, it's God's perfect plan,
Cameron McCarty · 35:47
regardless of if I voted for him or not. We must understand this. But unfortunately in culture today we use politics as a means of talking about our opinions. Families will be torn apart, friendships will be broken off, all because of opinions. And how sad is it that we live in a culture today, for anything, not just politics, that if you have a different opinion than me, we are automatically enemies. There's no talking, there's nothing, we are enemies, we will never talk again. It's childish, it's ineffective, and it's absolutely ridiculous. And you know the sad thing about that is that's in churches today, that's where we're at.
And as a Christian, go do your research, go vote, but leave your opinion in the booth with you when you insert that vote.
Cameron McCarty · 36:33
"How beautiful are the feet that preach politics" is what Paul would say, certainly not. You see, in 1 Timothy 2:8 Paul says, "I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling." And unfortunately our culture within itself, it's very popular to go against the grain of society, to go against the grain of government. We see it in movies, TV shows all the time about rebelling and going against governing officials, even when our government and authority today, yet we still have things like riots, people flipping over cars, burning buildings down, doing things like that. And imagine if we didn't have authority, how much more or greater that would be. You see, another thing is people will lead campaigns about abolishing any kind of authority, which is scary, but this is not surprising for a Christian, because we should understand from the Old Testament that we can actually read that rebelling against authority has been for a long time, it's in the heart of mankind. You see, in Genesis, Adam disobeyed God. In the book of Jonah disobeyed God, rebelled against God, and we understand this by reading it. And you see, people don't even like this is my pet peeve here, and this is going to be me inserting my own opinion that I've been talking about not to do it, but I think this is a public service announcement for everybody here, and I will call you out in public. But we live in a society that thinks that we don't need governing officials, but we can't even put our carts up in the cart bin. You see, I will go to Walmart, Price chopper, and there is like six or seven flock of carts right there in the corner, and a good gush of wind and that cart will just wreck someone's car, and it'll probably be mine. But the interesting thing is that is us within itself. If we can't even put our carts up, and that's something small, then getting rid of a whole governing authority, oh my, that would be scary. And yes, this is silly, carts, really? That's going to be the thing that you're going to really plant your feet in the sand and you're going to draw the sign, I will draw the line in the sand right there? But it's silly, but how often is our conversations about opinions that are silly and don't even matter? Are we sharing the gospel? Are we talking about eternal things, or are we talking about silly matters like these? It doesn't matter the outcome of any election. It doesn't matter who's in office, who we voted for, if they win, if they lose, regardless of that, we do our part and we preach the gospel message. We know God has a perfect plan and it's not dictated by what we do. If salvation was dictated by us, oh my, we would probably lose it a ton, and you know, honestly, we probably could never even get it to begin with, and that's what we learned with Romans, is we can't do this on our own. And if God would adapt and change with culture, that's called progressive Christianity, which is heresy and not correct, it's dangerous for the church. So let's just preach the gospel, for that's really the only thing that we should be doing. Be model citizens, be living sacrifices, let love be genuine, and genuine love will share the gospel with someone out of love and not out of malicious intent. I shared a story with Reverb, I'm not going to get into it at all, but it's this hat that I would use to talk to people about Jesus and God, and it was very derogatory, it had a message, it was very flashy, and what I learned with this hat is it did not promote the gospel, but oftentimes promoted an opinion versus an opinion, and it's so easy to be molded into sharing our opinions and insulting government officials, because that's what society does today. Eternity is far more important than a four-year term. So when people hear about Christians today, what do they think? They might think the horrible Sunday lunch crowd after church, the hypocritical people that love divisions, there's a lot of denominations, now preachers that only preach political agendas and not gospel truths. And why is it that we are categorized as Christians like this and not what the Bible says? Because I think oftentimes our opinions are more valuable than what the Bible says, unfortunately. We are to be lights that stand in the midst of a dark culture, but it's our opinions that can dim that light. There will always be policies and laws that will upset us, there are several, but God will always reign supreme and never leave his throne. We understand this, we understand that he will judge everything one day. One day Christ will return. So instead of our insults, instead of anything that's negative toward someone,
Let the wrath of God be enough, and we just preach the good news instead of insults.
Cameron McCarty · 42:17
See, the Bible says we must be ready, so let's spend this election season in prayer for whoever is in office and not bashing them.
Let's spend this election season proclaiming the gospel, not a political agenda.
Cameron McCarty · 42:29
You see, a Christian that's more concerned with their opinion will always muddy a gospel message. Even under the ruler of Nero, the church of Rome grew. News flash, America is not even the fastest-growing churches around the world, it's those that fear for their life, but the fear for God is greater. Truth is greater than anything that we experience here. And even in the end of this speaks volumes because of Paul's last days. Paul in chapter 1 said, "I long to come visit you, but I've been hindered."
Eventually he will go to Rome, but not on his own terms, but as a Roman prisoner he will go, but yet he even talks about still, even with all these things, obeying the government, obeying governing authorities is obeying God, and that's important. So what are we going to proclaim? What are we proclaiming now in our lives? And we need to remember that God's hand is in everything, so when we are quick to insult, slander, or disrespect,
Let's remember that we are also disrespecting God, disobeying God,
Cameron McCarty · 43:55
and it's a hard message to hear, but we understand that proclaiming the good news and not our opinions is what we must do. So really spend time carefully listening to what others say and how quick you are to join in, that we can easily be transformed into the world, be molded into the world, and completely be like the world. In 2 Timothy 2:8–9 Paul says, "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound." Paul is coming to his end on earth. Many people believe that 2 Timothy is his last letter before he dies, but even Paul understands, even as a prisoner, he might be bound and chained, but the gospel is not. The gospel is alive. You see, the gospel my grandma understood and was preached and listened to and all this other stuff was also the same gospel that's today, because it doesn't change because of society. And even in this situation where he's in prison and things aren't looking so good, God is still in control. He knows the gospel is important and it will never be bound by life circumstances. God's Word is enough. Our Lord is faithful, he is good, and let's preach the gospel message to a society that needs it.
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